


be still, my foolish heart

by liminalism



Category: TOMORROW X TOGETHER | TXT (Korea Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Non-Famous, Friends With Benefits, Light Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-27
Updated: 2020-08-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:54:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26140702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liminalism/pseuds/liminalism
Summary: “This is going to be completely casual,” the boy had declared, firm and irrevocable. “I’m not going to fall in love with you, so please don’t go around falling in love with me. I need to focus on my studies.”Yeonjun, poor, tender-hearted Yeonjun who thought he could, had agreed.
Relationships: Choi Beomgyu/Choi Yeonjun
Comments: 35
Kudos: 137





	be still, my foolish heart

**Author's Note:**

> this was simply supposed to be a drabble for those ship + one line dialogue prompts but would i be myself if i didn't somehow extend it to 2k?
> 
> title from almost (sweet music) by hozier

“Hyung,” Beomgyu says, a strange air of sadness and finality around him. “We can’t keep doing this.”

It feels like a sentence and release at the same time. Yeonjun’s chest aches.

“You’re right,” he agrees easily, though his hands shake from where they’re hidden under the comforter. “I’m getting too busy for regular hook-ups anyway.”

He catches something in Beomgyu’s eyes shutter and flicker into nothingness before the younger boy could look away. Yeonjun resists the urge to clench his fists. What would he even be holding on to?

“Right. Yeah. Me too.” Beomgyu’s voice doesn’t waver. It doesn’t matter that Beomgyu’s looking away and Yeonjun can’t gauge his expression. It’s _Beomgyu_ who’s calling this off, not him. _Thank god_ , Yeonjun finds himself thinking.

_Thank god for what? That I don’t have to be the one to stop – whatever this is?_

Beomgyu stands up to gather his clothes, scattered all over Yeonjun’s apartment bedroom. Illuminated by the rich light of the moon filtering through his curtains, Yeonjun thinks Beomgyu looks perfect. Bathed in moonlight. The only light he’s really only ever seen him in, if he thinks about it. He’s only ever been with Beomgyu during cover of the night, he realizes – the club they first met at, the library when they found each other pulling an all-nighter, all the post-class dinners, every other time they fell into each other’s bed; all of that, at night.

Beomgyu starts dressing himself. The moonlight ripples over his bare skin, littered with small red marks. Yeonjun had made those. 

_You don’t want to stop, do you?_

“Sure you don’t want to shower first?” he says, and his voice sounds weird, too tight to pass as lighthearted. Beomgyu ignores it, if he even notices. 

“Nah, hyung, I’ll shower at my place.”

The sound of jeans being zipped rings loud in the room. Yeonjun unclenches his fists. He hadn’t even realized he’d clenched them in the first place. There’s something awkward and stilted in the air, making it hard to breathe. 

Beomgyu slips his shirt on, plain and simple but tailored to fall on his smaller frame as prettily and delicately as possible. He'd been dressed similarly during that night at the club, too. Paired with the black skinny jeans, Beomgyu had been irresistible, pull too magnetic for Yeonjun to fight against, and he’d fallen easily, too easily, lured again and again and again under familiar kisses and lingering touches and knowing looks; all of that simply ringing _false, false, false_ now, as the other boy puts his clothes back on in his room for the last time.

Yeonjun had been careful to only ever refer to Beomgyu as his _friend with benefit_ , had been careful not to mention him too much to his friends, had been so, _so_ careful not to get attached, because he knew how he worked, knew how his heart operated; but by god he’d wanted to try so much, wanted to see if he could break his curse as the victim of his own heart, wanted to check if he could escape the concept of one night stands unscathed, and Beomgyu had been so captivating under the influence of alcohol that first night, beautiful and alluring and inescapable and – well. Yeonjun had thought, when he woke up the next morning with the early morning sun in his eyes, alone, that that would be the end of it.

But they’d run into each other so many more times afterwards; it was like after discovering Beomgyu’s existence, suddenly he was everywhere. When Yeonjun left the library after that all-nighter with a new contact saved under “BG 🐻” and the newfound knowledge that Choi Beomgyu was just as beautiful when they were both sober, even without the excuse of alcohol, he should have known everything that followed was going to be inevitable. 

Beomgyu had set boundaries too, when they first acknowledged this – the hook-ups – was going to be A Thing. 

“This is going to be completely casual,” the boy had declared, firm and irrevocable. “I’m not going to fall in love with you, so please don’t go around falling in love with me. I need to focus on my studies.”

Yeonjun, poor, tender-hearted Yeonjun who thought he could, had agreed.

 _Look at where you are now_ , his brain hisses at him traitorously, a couple of months later, sitting in a bed suddenly too big for just one and swallowing down an ugly lump in his throat. _Poor little Yeonjun, attached despite his best efforts._

Beomgyu seems to pick up on the weirdness in the air, not turning around even as he sits on the edge of the bed and ties his shoes on. Yeonjun tries to act normal, snatching at his phone from the bedside table, but his movements are jerky even for him, and he can’t help but notice that his thumb is shaking as he inputs his password. He manages to unlock his phone and taps on Twitter solely based on muscle memory. _Get yourself together._

The movement at the edge of his bed stops. Yeonjun stares unseeingly at his phone. The silence threatens to choke him.

Beomgyu breaks it first.

“Hyung, I –”

“I’ll be okay.”

Sticky, awkward, stifling.

“Oh.”

“You were clear about – this – from the very start.”

He feels Beomgyu shift on the bed.

“Hyung.”

“Really, Beomgyu-yah, don’t worry about me. I’ll be okay. You don’t have to feel bad or anything.”

“Yeonjun, look at me.”

“It’s okay, you can go, I don’t want to keep you, you know? You’re so smart, go back to your studies.”

“Yeonjun.”

“And, and I’m sure you want to go shower now too, go on, don’t let me keep you. I’ll be f–”

“Hyung, you’re crying.”

“I – huh?”

“You’re crying.”

 _Fuck_. He is, isn’t he? He didn’t even notice, but his phone is blurry in front of him.

_Poor little Yeonjun. Heart too big for his own good._

“Sorry,” he laughs. He hates how it sounds, wet and shaky. So weak. Yeonjun tries to wipe at his eyes, drops his phone on the bed to cover his face, but more tears leak out. “God, I’m so – what a mess, I’m making this so weird, I don’t even know why I’m –”

“Yeonjun-hyung, please look at me.”

“Why won’t you leave already?” Yeonjun gasps out. “Please just leave,” he says, almost begs. He hates how small his voice sounds. He doesn’t sob, at least, has just enough control to be able to cry silent tears instead of further humiliating himself. 

There’s more movement at the edge of his bed, and he feels the mattress rise as weight is taken off it. _He’s leaving. Finally_. Footsteps, and then silence. He can’t hear any more past the rush in his ears. 

Suddenly, there are hands tugging on his, pulling them away from his face, and Yeonjun is so shocked he freezes. Vaguely, he realizes he must look like the ugliest, most heartbroken mess in the world.

“Why… why are you crying?”

The question is so unexpected, if only because Yeonjun was so sure he’d just laid himself out bleeding in front of this boy in the rawest possible way. But Beomgyu is looking at him with a strange mixture of emotions on his face, confusion winning out against everything else. Yeonjun finds himself entranced by Beomgyu’s eyes, even through the tears, even in the dark.

“Hyung, please answer me,” Beomgyu demands, something fierce lacing his voice. “Why are you crying like this?”

“I…” Yeonjun clears his throat, tugs one of his hands free from Beomgyu’s grip to swipe at his face. “N-nothing, really, I’m just a very emotional person, it sounds really lame and cheesy but I hate endings, any kind of ending, and so you leaving me isn’t even supposed to be this, this _dramatic_ but I’m just – I just –”

“Leaving you,” Beomgyu repeats slowly, like he’s testing the words out for himself. “Hyung, I –”

“I – I mean, that we’re ending this! Not, not leaving that’s so – wrong choice of words, Beomgyu-yah, sorry –”

“Hyung. Hyung, Yeonjun, hyung, stop for a moment.”

Yeonjun snaps his mouth shut. _What is happening?_

“Hyung,” Beomgyu says, low and serious. Yeonjun only now notices that Beomgyu had made his way back on the bed, is kneeling in front of him, and that the other boy is fully clothed while he still only has his shirt on. He shivers at the look in Beomgyu’s eyes, and his mind is both sluggish, unable to process anything, and going at a hundred miles a minute. 

“Answer me with a yes or no, okay?” Beomgyu pauses, lets the meaning of his words sink in. Yeonjun is helpless against Beomgyu when he’s like this. He nods.

“Do you want me to leave?”

The world stops, freezes, crashes and breaks apart and then reforms itself back again, all in one singular moment. 

Yeonjun, honest, raw, vulnerable Yeonjun – what choice does he have in the face of someone who can shatter worlds and bring them back together like that? Beomgyu is looking at him, brows furrowed and eyes intense, ablaze.

Yeonjun shakes his head. _No._

 _Please don’t leave me_.

Something in Beomgyu’s face blooms.

In the next moment, Yeonjun is being hugged and kissed so furiously he falls back to the bed with the force of it. Above him, Beomgyu giggles, breathless as nothing short of what looks like pure, unadulterated _joy_ lights him up.

“Beomgyu…?” Yeonjun’s hands have automatically moved to their place on Beomgyu’s waist, and as the younger boy leans down to smother his face again with kisses, Yeonjun feels almost like an idiot, even as his arms move to wrap around Beomgyu’s neck and back and loosely hug the other boy against him. 

“Make it really clear to me, Choi Yeonjun, use your words,” Beomgyu tells him, eyes alight, face resplendent. “Did you fall in love with me?”

The question jolts Yeonjun back into control of his body, his senses. _Oh_.

“Yes.” It comes out as a croak, and he clears his throat and tries again. “Yes. I did.”

Beomgyu _laughs_. It’s the best sound in the world, Yeonjun decides then and there. Better than anything he’d ever heard from the other boy before, even the whispers of his own name under the sheets. The sound lights him up, electrifies him, spreads through his chest out, out throughout his body, to his face and his stomach and the tips of his fingers and toes. He needs to hear it again. 

“Choi Beomgyu, I’m in love with you.”

“ _Wow_ ,” Beomgyu giggles again. “We’ve been idiots.”

Yeonjun pouts, though he can’t maintain it longer than five seconds before he’s breaking into giddy laughter too. “One minute into our dramatic love confessions and you’re already insulting us.”

Beomgyu boops him on the nose, and then bites it for good measure. “Five minutes ago you were _crying,_ hyung.” He stops then, looking down in alarm. “Hey, you’re –”

“ _Fuck off_ ,” Yeonjun hisses, letting go of Beomgyu to swipe at his face _again_. “I’m just really happy, okay? You mentioning my emotional state from five minutes ago didn’t help.”

“My crybaby hyung,” Beomgyu teases, but his hands are cupping Yeonjun’s cheeks and his thumbs are wiping his tears away and the tenderness of it all isn’t helping either, Yeonjun can’t stop _crying_ –

“I’m going to kiss you now,” Beomgyu warns. “It’s on you if you can’t breathe.”

“You little shit,” Yeonjun grumbles, but the distraction in the form of Beomgyu’s clever little mouth on his – it works. 

Beomgyu only breaks away to confirm that “I’m _your_ little shit, right?”, to which Yeonjun only rolls his eyes and pulls him back down.

 _I’m in love with you_.

Yeonjun wakes up first, that next morning. Sunlight is dancing on Beomgyu’s face, relaxed and pretty and innocent in sleep. Yeonjun remembers his realization from last night, that he’d only ever seen Beomgyu during the night, and he’s so overwhelmed he leans in to brush his lips softly on the other boy’s forehead. He wonders if Beomgyu had noticed that odd little thing about them, too.

 _Well, we have a lot more time to talk, now. Later_.

Beomgyu stirs a bit. “Hyung. Cuddle,” he mumbles, then takes matters into his own hands by fumbling around for Yeonjun’s arm and wrapping it around his own waist before promptly falling back to sleep.

Yeonjun drops a kiss to the back of Beomgyu’s head and settles back into sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> (the prompt was "we can't keep doing doing this", the very first line)
> 
> i wrote this in two hours, a feat which i am both horrified by and proud of
> 
> feedback would be appreciated! i've written beomjun before but never posted anything, so opinions would be nice ♡︎
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/yeonjunsugas) | [cc](https://curiouscat.me/coffeeyoongi)


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